HBF Wales response: Private sector delivers more than 30% of new build affordable homes

The Welsh government has released its latest figures on affordable housing delivery for 2025/26. They show that the private sector delivered 31% of all new build affordable homes through Section 106 planning obligations. The release also shows that overall affordable housing delivery in 2025/26 was the highest since records began in 2007.

Through Section 106 agreements between local authorities and private developers, the industry helps to provide homes for those who need them most. Today’s figures confirm the home building industry’s significant contribution to affordable housing delivery and to the Welsh government’s target of 20,000 social homes.

Unlike affordable housing delivered directly by Registered Social Landlords or local authorities, these homes are typically provided with limited or no direct government subsidy.

The data release shows that:

• In 2025/26, 3,865 affordable homes were delivered across Wales – 6% more than in the previous year.
• Capital grant funding supported 83% of all affordable housing units, while 69% of the affordable homes delivered were new builds.
• Of these, 823 affordable homes were delivered by the private sector through Section 106 planning obligations.
• This represented 21% of total affordable housing delivery and 31% of all new build affordable homes when acquisitions and conversions of existing properties are excluded.
• Over the past five years, Section 106 planning obligations have delivered 35% of all new-build affordable homes – an average of 860 homes a year.

Affordable housing delivery is therefore intrinsically linked to the overall level of market housing construction. Any approach that fails to address the wider barriers to market housing delivery risks limiting the number of affordable homes that can be provided.

Alongside Affordable Housing, the industry delivers hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in local communities across Wales every year through planning agreements. Alongside £230m for Affordable Housing, in 2025/26 the industry delivered:

• £146m in spending in local shops
• £32m for infrastructure, including around £14m for new and improved schools
• £5m in spending for open spaces and leisure facilities.

Catherine Williams, planning director for HBF, said: “Private home builders are instrumental in achieving the Welsh Government’s ambition to deliver more social and affordable homes, and today’s figures demonstrate this.

“However, overall housing delivery remains well below the level required to meet Wales’s housing needs, and the home building industry needs further support to increase the delivery of both affordable and market homes.

“We are therefore encouraged by the Welsh government’s commitment to reducing the complexity of the planning system and by the extension of Help to Buy Wales, both of which should further support delivery across all tenures.

“The home building industry stands ready to continue working in partnership with the Welsh government to help deliver the homes, jobs and thriving communities that Wales needs.”